Day 16: All This Sh*t Has Been Done Before

I had half of this written at 11:30pm.  But finishing it took another ninety minutes.

All This Sh*t Has Been Done Before

The best dream. Chasing after my muse, Jennifer: flowing dress, lustrous golden hair. And an ever ready action-pot.

Jennifer replenish me. Get her to tell me all her secrets so I can steal them and sell them as my own. Hey, we all gotta get through this somehow.

Jennifer holds me in her arms, her breasts warm and soft, her smell sweet. The skies are clear, a gentle breeze blows, and she says my name over and over, softly, like the rain.

Jennifer forgives me!

Okay, dream over.

Wake up. Get out of bed. Et cetera.

Subway.

Exit subway, walk down street, enter elevator.

In the elevator there is that passive aggro chick, I think her name is Sandra. While inside the elevator, Sandra stands right in front of the door even if she is going to the twenty-third floor. Lots of people gonna get off before her, push by, probably think their own passive aggro thoughts. Sandra don't care.

Deal with her by (1) freakin' ignoring her and (2) sweating into my cuffs.

Onto floor 12. Make it to the desk. Rack my briefcase on the shelf above--next to Advertising Age and JavaScript for Dummies--pin the coat by the "door" and dig in.

All this shit been done before, post-Soviet kitsch in red and black, or something super-cute, or the bare trickle of ironic text in an ironic font down the center of the ironic page. Completely getting on my nerves.

“Knock knock!” Who's there? Christ, I even think in clichés.

A nod from Richard as he saunters into my cubicle. He wants another below-the-radar, stencils and spray paint, amateurish yet beautiful website thing, selling Scripture or plasma screens or something good to eat.

Listen, I am really trying to put this together, I promise I am, nobody really wants to have a psychotic break, not ever, certainly not on Casual Friday, not as a response to a suggestion from your boss, no matter how trite his suggestion may be. So hitch up the thinking parts, make the feet touch the floor, hold back the 10am anti-Semitic tirade, the tired one. Wait for the Full Monty, with finger-mustache and goose-stepping.

(You know. When you are losing your shit, you are entitled to hate on any old class of people, as long as you commit fully. If you go halfway, with a witless opinion and the disclaimer that "I'm not racist but," you are just the sad and inevitable product of poor parental models.)

So I grab up my tired, empty wits, and opine freely on the nature of the market and how our audience has turned their eyeballs back to the print media, and you know what would be truly subversive? A straightforward, sincere display ad, with beautiful people in it.

But this is barely out of my mouth before I am thinking that I have heard someone say this before, and I am not sure whether it was me or a guy that I really despise.

Richard buys it, or he just wants to get out of range of the spittle flying from my lips, and tells me the idea is great. He backs out of my half-cube and iterates to the next action item on his list.

So now I have signed on to developing a campaign by the end of the day, Richard definitely heard me say that. So I gotta do something. So I hike it over to Production. They're right next to the bathrooms and I can watch the girls going in and out.

Can't figure out which one of these leggy 19 year old bitches I wanna make. Tempted just to grab the pull on any one of the shiny zippers down the back of the dresses, slither the chosen garment off the chosen body, and get busy.

Edit that shit Psychoflyboy. There're other flowers I gotta trim. Like getting my brain in order. Like making the big bucks. Like Janelle in Reception. She's sweet like spring on the Hudson. And her eyes are for me. I seen her makin' them.

First things first! Mock up some campaign text over glossy all-American sweethearts like Dick, Jane, or Insert Cream Puff Here. Campaign text like: "If you buy a hamburger in New Jersey, it will suck. So come to Brooklyn and eat at Sandra's. Nom nom nom!" That's the weak version, but I can rewrite it. Typeface is wayyy more important than text.

Five minutes at the keyboard, ten more with the mouse and the Wacom, scribble scribble snip, done. I am not losing it. I am totally in control. What I need, I think, is a vacation.

Now to the bathroom to douse my face in water. Gotta scrub the slaver off the chin. Pat my gleaming visage dry, gently, with the premium recycled hand towels. We sell these towels in print ads in all the tony Gay designer magazines. We got crates of this shit in the supply room. Nom nom nom.

Damn, I shouldn't joke to myself about sweating in my cuffs, they're soaked. Stupid splattery faucet. Grab some more of these super-absorbent Earth-friendly napkins, stuff them up my sleeves. Git 'er done.

Burst outta the washroom, a clean man, a man on a mission, lurch into Dan, my rival for Richard's love. Dan is the Sun King right now, the slimy bastard. He side-steps my headlong rush, gives me an awesome hipster hand shake, I can't remember how it's done I've done it so many times.

But I have business to do. The Sun King is a distraction. I will navigate around him as quickly as possible. Here is where I pay just enough attention to his words to return their force upon him, jiu-jitsu style.

“Heyhey, how's it going? I hear you have the Mumble account. Good luck--that's the top of the Wanted List. You got the Must Have. You have been Crowned, my brother!”

Except when he said Mumble, he said the name of the product, whatever it is. How did this bastard outfox me even when I am so primed and ready? He said I have the Top of the Wanted List! He knows something. Time to take decisive action.

Oh, and good call on the paper goods around my wrists. It's Niagra inside my shirt. My eyes have tears in the corners, I'm so full of pep and zoom.

I say some words. Words are a good way to explain this shit that we gotta do in this business. A good way to practice conversational martial arts. Little capsule of power-laden information shooting from my mouth into Dan-Dan's ears. Zing!

Placing in Dan's brain a surplus of information indicating in subtle ways three things: (1) I am performing an excellent job, (2) he better not think he's the Sun King any more, and (3) Janelle from Reception is mine.

A look of stupefaction creeps across Danny Boy's face. The boy is just a bit slow. I gotta explain this carefully.

I grasp with the thumb and forefinger of each hand a corresponding collar point of Dan's shirt. This gets me closer to his face so I can put the capsules of information into Dan's ear by the shortest route.

This is where I get blurry, because now I am standing on a desk, dividing up the cubicles into divisions. I explain that the girls have to get over on one side and the boys on another. That's so I can protect the girls from the bad sperm inside all of the other boys and give them my good sperm, which is like a vaccine, only it tastes like candy.

After this, I am in Dan's arms. He is holding me very tightly, as is Richard, and also Javier, who works security on the first floor. I am surprised that Javier is here. I feel that I am important.

Danny is telling me that it's going to be OK now. On this point, we are in agreement. Everything is OK, and it is going to be totally OK, and everything, everything, everything is going to be OK.

(C) 2011 Michael Bernstein